Forever Young

by Trick Question

Cinnamon Tea

On Saturday, I decided to pay Cinnamon Tea a visit. I headed to his house and knocked on the door.

A pretty mare wearing too much makeup and jangly bracelets and earrings answered the door. "Oh! Rumble is it? Cinnamon's been expecting you," she said. "Come right in."

I walked into the house. It looked like she'd just cleaned everything in sight, and it smelled a little like bleach. Even the knickknacks on the shelf were perfectly spaced and aligned.

She led me to what I assumed was Cinnamon's room, judging from the "Danger! Imperial Awesome Zone" poster on the door. "Darling, he's here," she said.

The door opened. Cinnamon stood in front of me, wearing his diamond collar. He's a plain-looking unicorn foal with vibrant violet eyes and an oddly curved horn. "I was wondering when you'd show," he said with a grin. "Thanks, Mom." The mare leaned down and kissed him on the lips, lingering for an awkward second.

I raised a brow. "You knew I'd come by? I'm surprised you didn't come get me, actually."

"You live for a while, you learn patience," he said, then ushered me into his room and closed the door behind us.

"Why is your horn curved like that?" I asked. "Is that like, a tattoo or something?"

"Oh, I'm an Eastern unicorn," he said. "I used to keep the tip sharp, too, as is our custom, but that was centuries ago. Since I moved to Equestria I've kept it filed down so I don't stab somepony by accident."

"Wow. Can you speak other languages?" I asked. "You sound totally like an Equestria colt."

"Thanks. It took me a hundred years or so to switch accents, and accents have changed here too over the past few hundred years," he revealed. "As for languages, I once knew six but I forgot all of them but two. You don't retain rote knowledge unless you rehearse it, and it isn't worth the amount of time you'd need to dedicate. I remember my native tongue, but I'm pretty rusty: wǒ xiǎng jiào shìjiè wéixiào." The strange way he spoke surprised me so much, I forgot to ask for a translation. It sounded like his voice was wiggling up and down every time he hit a vowel.

"Um... I've heard sometimes unicorns keep their horns sharp if they're in the military," I said. I was clearly out of my element. "I dunno if it's like that."

"That's not true in peacetime. Horns aren't what you want to hit the enemy with, anyway," he said. "I didn't start filing it down immediately, but eventually it became a hazard for hugs and cuddles, which are way more important than accidentally stabbing adults in the neck. Eastern unicorn ponies aren't as touchy-feely as the folks out here are. My family wanted me to keep it sharp even after we moved, mainly for protection, but eventually they gave in."

Since I was out of words, I took a moment to look around the room. Cinnamon's bedroom was remarkably different from every other foal's room I'd ever been in. There were toys in a basket, but none on the floor. There was an electric guitar in a stand, and a shelf with several other musical instruments. He had a low-set easel and paints, and a painting in progress of what looked like a cloud kingdom with golden buildings and strange birds. Even incomplete, it was undeniably beautiful.

"Wow. You paint," I stated the obvious. "And you're good at it!"

"I'm no Mycowangelo, but thanks! Don't taste any of the paint, though, it's all toxic," he warned me. "I play a bunch of instruments too, in case that was your next question. This one's called an ocarina." He picked up a strange flute-like thing and trilled a few pleasant-sounding notes from it, then set it back down.

"Oh, right. Sweet Pop said you were like, centuries old or something," I said.

"Yep! Two-hundred ninety-three years young," he said. "I'd be way older, but I timeported into the future once when I was mourning one of my spouses. Got in a lot of trouble, long story. Anyway, music's easier to retain. Muscle memory stuff and day-to-day stuff you can remember, so I'm really good at those things. Book smarts you keep forgetting. I do about a half-hour of vocab study most mornings. You?"

"Dude, I'm nine," I said. "You're like, a dozen times older than me! Or more, even."

"Yeah, a lot more. Nine's pretty old for a newly frozen foal, though. You're lucky getting in that late," he said. "I was eight, which was normal back then, but nowadays they almost always do them younger. Oh, and I'm one-twenty-sixth."

I sat down on the floor next to the easel. "A twenty-sixth?"

"I'm the hundred and twenty-sixth oldest frozen foal at the moment, though I have the second-oldest birthdate of any of us! I don't usually spread that around, though, so keep it under your hat, okay? The timeport knocked me all the way down to a hundred and twenty-seventh, but one of the others died in an accident about a century ago," he said. "Celie clamped down even harder on our autonomy after that incident."

I narrowed my eyes. "Celie?"

He reared up and gestured tall. "You know, horn and wings, huge and white, weird long neck, mane and tail made out of gelatin or magical ghost slime or something because hair doesn't actually do that..."

"Oh, Princess Celestia. Do you know her?"

"Not as well as I'd like to," he joked, with a wink. "But I know her pretty well, and we spend more time together as I get older. I visit her in Canterlot every once in a while."

"Eww. Was that a sex joke?" I asked, cringing.

"Yeah, champ. That was totally a sex joke," he said with a grin. "I can't legally talk to you about detailed sex stuff until you turn forty, though. Unless you want to know about relationships with your spouse in, like, a general sense."

"Wait, what? You mean with your mom, that mare?" I felt the muscles in my back tighten up. "Dude. Don't even joke about doing it with your mom. That's... that's just sick."

"She's not my biological mom, obviously. I mean, that'd be illegal, at least if you got caught doing it anyway. My original mom died a very, very long time ago," he said. "Also, I can't say anything about the Mom you just met, because you're not supposed to talk about who you have sex with while they're still alive. There's a bunch of laws about it. You can only reveal your current sex partners to other ponies you have sex with, and to other diamonds. But outside of my real Mom, all my dead spouses? Totally."

I recoiled in disgust. "That is so gross! I mean, isn't your spouse supposed to be like, your substitute parents, or something? You even call her Mom!"

Cinnamon grabbed a mandolin in his magic and cocked his head as he pulled it into his hooves, then plucked a few strings manually. "Basically yeah, but you need your owner's permission to have sex with anypony at all, so it's easiest if you're just intimate with them," he said. "I mean, if you're gonna spend sixty years of your life with somepony, wouldn't you want to be close to them?"

My brow knitted tightly. "I guess, but they've got like, power over you, don't they? Isn't that some kind of abuse? I mean, I know you're old, so you're not a normal foal, but still..."

"It's an exchange of power. Taking care of a frozen foal is more than just being a parent. It's a lifetime commitment, for them anyway, and you can't just decide to get a divorce without strong justification," he explained. "As for you, you're not the boss anymore. Somepony else gets to tell you what to do with your life. That's just the way it is. But they can't force you to be intimate if you don't want it. Plus, they usually want it more than you do, which gives you leverage."

"I guess if you're mostly an adult in a foal's body, it's not that horrible. I still don't like thinking about it, though," I said, frowning.

"Well, I'll be honest about one thing. I may be nearly three centuries old, but I'm still not exactly an adult. Even when you hit forty, messing around is a little dangerous because you stay emotionally immature," he explained. "An imperial colt never gets total control of his feelings, but you learn strategies to deal with them over time. And it's easier when you have a caregiver who is always there for you, because abandonment isn't an issue."

"Imperial colt?" I blinked a few times.

"Oh, right. That's what we used to call frozen foals: imperial colts and imperial fillies. They changed it because it sounds too pompous, y'know? We really don't want to make ponies envious, because it might put us in danger," he said. "Plus, I used to be royalty out East. I renounced it after the timeport, though. Being a frozen foal is enough of a distraction and being foreign royalty only made the attention worse. Sometimes Sweet Pop and I call each other Imperial, just for fun, but the nickname was way before her time. I guess 'Imperial Colt' can't be my nickname anymore now that there's two of us in town, but you and I can still call each other that if you want."

It actually sounded like fun. It was like I was being invited into a really exclusive club. In a way, I guess I was. "Cinnamon, can I ask a general question about sex? Why do you like it? You never hit puberty, right?"

He smiled. "Sex... is about more than just the physical feelings. It's about the closeness, and the weirdness, and sharing love. The emotions are still there, and there's some physical enjoyment too, but it's... different."

"Different?" I asked.

"Yeah. Adults describe sex being 'electric' or 'volcanic' or 'passionate', but for diamonds it's more like... It feels like... parasprites in your belly," he said, clearly struggling to put it into words. "Like, you fall in love with somepony, and you want to share everything with them because you trust them completely and you always want them to be happy, and it just tickles you deep inside whenever you're reminded of that connection."

"Huh. That's kind of cute," I said, then paused in thought. "Wait a minute. If you can have sex with normal adults, and they're attracted to you, then even if you're way older than they are..."

Cinnamon chuckled. "They're foal fiddlers? Well, sure! That's the whole point of frozen foals, dude."

It took me a moment to close my gaping jaw before opening it again to speak. "W-what?"

"Think about it. We're like a wet dream come to life for pedofoals. The biggest problem with perverts who like foals is that when the foal gets a little older, they lose interest, and it's emotionally shattering for the foal," he said, skreetching his hoof across the strings to produce a horrible, dissonant sound. "That's the main reason it's illegal: relationships are toxic enough when you're a mature adult, but getting dumped by somepony who says they'll love you forever when you're just a child? That can mess you up for life. But this way, they get to love somepony they're attracted to long-term, and you get the most committed caregiver you could ever hope for. It's like having a Mom and a wife at the same time. Win-win."

"Oh, yuck! I refuse to believe Princess Celestia created frozens to 'do it' with foal fiddlers!" I said, feeling nauseous. "Seriously, colt. That's the dumbest theory I've heard yet, and I've heard a bunch."

Cinnamon waved a dismissive hoof. "Dumb? I think it makes perfect sense. Though, I also think she did it because she wants foals herself. An alicorn and an imperial would have a truly eternal relationship, which is one of the reasons I've always wanted to be closer to Celie. Plus, it's the only way an alicorn could ever have a lifelong relationship with a male, because stallions can't ascend."

"We don't know that for sure," I countered. "And Princess Celestia is NOT a pervert. Stop saying stupid things like that."

Cinnamon set down the mandolin and sighed. "Okay, fine. It's just a guess. I'll admit it, I've never had any luck with her. Not that I could legally tell you if I had, of course," he said, with a wry smile. "Still, every spouse I've had since my initial Mom has been 'that way', and they were all very respectful and worked out fine."

"Just... wow. How many owners have you had?" I asked.

"Six, including both my real Mom and the lady I currently call 'Mom'," he said. "I lucked out that they all lasted a long time."

"Ohmygosh. You met five perverts in a row who wanted to marry you?!"

"Three, at least. I can't tell you anything about the one you just met, and the one after my real Mom didn't want to be intimate at first." He grinned and added, "I changed that pretty quickly, though. There are plenty of mares and stallions desperate for a colt, if you know what I mean. Some just don't know it yet."

"Stallions?" I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. "Oh, right. I don't like fillies or anything, but I can't imagine being attracted to other colts."

"After your first marriage your suitors will mostly be males because they want it a lot more. You probably never thought about being with a stallion, but it's fun. And trust me, if you live long enough, you'll be into everything," he said with a shrug, as though it were the most normal thing in the world. Then he sat down beside me and whispered, "Most of my owners let me do stuff with other ponies, as long as they get to watch. One of my daddies used to host grand parties, and we'd even have other frozens there. Really wild stuff!"

"I can't believe this is legal. I just can't. You're talking about... It's..." I held my hooves over my ears and clenched my eyes shut.

I heard a sigh. After a few moments, Cinnamon peeled my hooves free and I looked up at his face. He looked sad. "Sorry for squicking you, dude. I know it's really weird, but you should be prepared for the future, right? And maybe you should be a little creeped out going into this, y'know?" he said, pausing for a moment like he was waiting for the message to sink in. "But don't worry, even after you turn forty, you never have to have sex! Refusing to have sex is the only thing in a frozen's life we have total and complete control over. I see it as my civic duty to share, Mommy willing, but if I have an owner who's open to me having sex with somepony—and when you date them you find out, as long as they don't lie or change their minds—then doing it becomes my decision alone. That's the best thing about sex. Everything is your call. You gotta cherish that tiny amount of power you still have left in your life."

I looked down at the floor for a moment. It looked like it had just been vacuumed, not a speck of dirt in sight. "I don't get it. What power am I losing by becoming a frozen? Are you like, a slave, or something? I mean, you and Pop seem like pretty normal foals to me."

Cinnamon Tea laughed brightly. "Oh, not at all! Nothing like that. You're not giving up much to be immortal, Rumble. You're only abandoning the power you would have ended up with if you decided to grow up instead," he explained. "Even though I feel like I'm missing out sometimes, that kind of power is mostly an illusion. Instead of having to do chores that your owner tells you to do, you'd have to force yourself to do them, which is a lot harder. Instead of having to live with your owner, you'd have to get a job and do stuff you don't enjoy, and being on your own is lonely anyway. There's no guarantee you'd find anypony you like to spend your life with. Being old gets increasingly painful and difficult. No life is perfect, but a frozen's life is as close to perfection as it gets. We just pretend like it sucks so mortal adults will feel like they still have something we don't."

I exhaled deeply. "I guess... it's not that bad then. But doesn't it bother you that you don't have any power over your life?"

Cinnamon stood back up and frowned. "A little. It isn't perfect, like I said. When you're frozen, your life doesn't really belong to you. You don't get to decide a lot of stuff. You have to do what your owner tells you, and it's like that forever," he said. "But that's true for mortal adults, too! Adults have to get a job and do things they don't want to in order to make life tolerable. We're driven by our owners, and they're driven by fate. We get the better end of the deal, especially when you have a lenient owner. Being frozen is where it's at."

"Okay." I couldn't begin to weigh all the possibilities running through my head. "Cinnamon... do you think I'll be weird like you someday? Uh, no offense."

"None taken, and probably. The older you are, the weirder you get," he said. "I have a therapist I see every week, which is a given after almost three centuries of memories. Don't sweat it, though. You have decades before you have to worry about any of this, and you'll have an amazing, mostly normal life during that time, and then you get to keep on living after that too. Live for today! Be yourself! That's what being a foal is all about." Cinnamon levitated the mandolin back into place on the shelf.

I wonder if I'll be a neat freak someday, I thought to myself. Or have horrifying sex parties...

"I think I need a b-break," I stammered. My voice was catching in my throat. It was too much input all at once.

"Yeah, let it settle. And hay, if you hit forty, and you ever stop feeling creeped out, come see me. I can tell you a lot more then, as long as I have your mom's permission of course," he said.

Then he smiled and winked at me again, and I immediately decided it was time to leave.

Comments

[Teikan]

lmao. Just find spells for a good memory. You have a lot of years to do this.

For so many years, you have not curbed your feelings? Not realistic.

Celestia will not be able to restrict the freedom of 300+ immortals, sooner or later they will unite and get their autonomy and make themselves more tenacious.

Very few people in the fandom know how to write old characters.

[Luckyfanisaac]

Cinnamon chuckled. "They're foal fiddlers? Well, sure! That's the whole point of frozen foals, dude."

Okay that makes sense.